Obama signs historic health bill into law

A smiling President Barack Obama today signed a historic 938 billion dollar health care overhaul that guarantees coverage for 32 million uninsured Americans.

The new scheme will touch nearly every citizen's life, presiding over the biggest shift in US domestic policy since the 1960s and capping a divisive, year-long debate that could define the November elections.

Celebrating "a new season in America" - the biggest accomplishment of his White House and one denied to a line of presidents before him - Mr Obama made the massive bill law with a White House signing ceremony.

He was joined by jubilant House and Senate Democrats as well as lesser-known people whose health care struggles have touched the president.

Mr Obama scheduled back-to-back events to mark the moment, with much of his White House audience, as well as hundreds of others, heading to the Interior Department immediately after the signing.

"Today after almost a century of trial, today after over a year of debate, today after all the votes have been tallied, health insurance reform becomes law in the United States of America," he said.

"Today," he said, interrupted by applause after nearly every sentence, "all of the overheated rhetoric over reform will finally confront the reality of reform."

The plan will be phased in over four years, and it is expected to expand coverage to about 95% of eligible Americans, compared with 83% today.

"We have now just enshrined the core principle that everybody should have some basic security when it comes to their health," Mr Obama said.

The plan will eventually extend coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans, reduce federal budget deficits and ban insurance company practices such as denying coverage to people with existing medical problems.

Republicans united in opposition pledged to repeal the bill, which they criticised as a costly government takeover affecting one-sixth of the US economy.

The Republicans lack the votes needed to repeal the measure, but the minority party plans to use the issue to try to regain control of Congress in the November elections.

Shortly after Mr Obama signed the bill, mostly Republican attorney generals from 13 states said they were suing the federal government to stop the health changes, arguing that the provision that requires Americans to carry health insurance is unconstitutional.

Experts say the effort will probably fail because the US Constitution states that federal law supersedes state laws, but it will keep the issue alive until the November elections.

Democratic politicians say they have delivered on Mr Obama's campaign pledge for change, revamping a system in which the spiralling costs have put health care and insurance out of the reach of many Americans.

Now the president must sell the law's merits to a wary American public.